But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you Matthew 5:44, NKJV
I was taught years ago that praying for your enemies essentially means wishing for them what you wish for yourself. So yes, you make special exemptions for the safety of people who are in dangerous places when you are in a safe one, or people who are poor when you are rich, but you look to yourself, and what is in your own secret heart.
This pulls us away from high-sounding prayers to the low levels that we actually live in ourselves. Are we secretly hoping for vindication, or admiration? When we hope that they see themselves clearly, do we mean that in the same way that we hope to see ourselves clearly, by coming to the realisation ourselves, or do we want it shoved down their throats while we look on? When we pray for their health, shouldn't we be zipping in our own medical issues, our sleep disturbances and anxieties and foot pain - things that we actually care about and will remember with sincerity - rather than vague and general health? Who knows, that may be exactly what they are themselves hoping for at this moment, and you are brothers in worldly things even as you are distant spiritually.
May he have the admiration of his children.
May her resentments not rule her.
May those who wish her ill not come near her.
If he has been treated unjustly, may he live to see vindication.
It is impossibly hard, and I would not say it to your face as it would be too confrontative. Introspection is a technique, not a virtue, but self-honesty is sometimes the first thing that is necessary.
In general you become more like your enemies as your emnity grows. It is a commonplace understanding that the US soldier in Vietnam had more in common with the NVA soldiers he was fighting in the jungle than with his fellow private citizens back home, exactly because the soldiers shared the common shaping experience of their war. The Allied soldier fighting across France in WWII had a great deal in common with the Wermacht, as his father had with the Germans fighting across France in WWI. The longer the war goes on, the more it shapes you both.
ReplyDeleteI think this generalizes to conflicts of all kinds, so long as the conflict is mutual. If "your enemy" is someone you are jealous of, who doesn't even know that you exist and hardly spares you any thought, then obviously the common shaping experience is absent. In that case, you may be his enemy but he isn't necessarily yours. People who hate Elon Musk, for example, are probably not engaging his attention; their emnity is really just jealousy, and they may need the prayers more than he does.
There's a lot in this. I will spend some time on both paragraphs separately.
ReplyDelete